Funerals were an important social occasion in South Carolina, particularly for the African-American community, where solemn rituals were carried on within the African-American church traditions of respect for the dead that stretched back to African religious patterns (see Grave Located Outside Of Florence, and Grave Of An African American Near St. Andrews In Richland County). This funeral, photographed around 1926 by Richard S. Roberts, is probably being conducted by the Columbia firm of Manigault-Gaten-Williams, one of four African-American undertakers in the city in the 1920s.
Courtesy of the Richard S. Roberts Collection.
